By Ellie Katz, Interlochen Public Radio

Points North is a biweekly podcast about the land, water and inhabitants of the Great Lakes.

This episode was shared here with permission from Interlochen Public Radio. 

In the summer of 2015, Traci Lynn Martin’s mom was in the final weeks of a battle with cancer.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

By Zaria Johnson, Ideastream Public Media

This story was originally published by Ideastream.

Since December, four Northeast Ohio dogs and their human companions have been hot on the trail of invasive spotted lanternflies, sniffing out egg masses laid in the Cleveland Metroparks.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

One of the Great Lakes region’s most critical pieces of infrastructure is in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan on the St. Mary’s River, which connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron and eventually to the rest of the lakes.

The locks on the river handle up to 1,000-foot-long ships, enabling them to carry bulk freight from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan to ports throughout the Great Lakes region.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Catch the latest updates on what’s happening with PFAS in the Great Lakes region. Check back for more PFAS news roundups every other week on our website.

On May 14, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced their plan to roll back significant portions of the Biden administration’s first nationwide drinking water standard for PFAS.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

New luxury homes, yacht slips, and trendy hotels and restaurants are cropping up along the glittering waterfront of this west Michigan city.

Nothing unusual for the Lake Michigan coast, long known for beach towns that cater to summer vacationers and wealthy second-homers. But to those familiar with Muskegon’s blue collar history, it’s a stunning transformation.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Cities around the Great Lakes region are trying to make transportation cheaper for riders and more environmentally friendly by expanding their public transit networks. Two modes that are often pitted against each other are light rail and bus rapid transit (BRT). While not every BRT line meets the same standards, in general, they have been upgraded for higher capacity and speed, although they have fewer stations.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Charlevoix Fisheries Research Station is based in a building that was constructed in 1917, originally as a federal fish hatchery. It wasn’t the first on this site. An earlier hatchery was built in 1894.

The U.S. government was trying to replenish the fish population.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the intensity of hourly rainfall has increased in U.S. cities since 1970, with the Great Lakes region being among the most affected areas.

Great Lakes Now spoke with Stephen Shaw, a professor at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Livelihoods and economies in the Great Lakes region always centered on water. From the manoomin, or wild rice, grown and revered by the Ojibwe people to the whitefish catch in Lake Michigan, to the water-dependent ports, steel mills, and manufacturers that dot thousands of miles of Fresh Coast lakeshore. The area’s liquid assets and the industries that developed around them form a “blue economy.”

The treasure trove of clean fresh water is seen as a competitive edge in a region hungry for growth and whose leaders boast about exporting the scientific breakthroughs and infrastructure hardware to solve the world’s water challenges.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

This article was republished here with permission from Great Lakes Echo.

By Victoria Witke, Great Lakes Echo

Every spring for the last 15 years, Gene Gilliland and some friends have gone smallmouth bass fishing in Lake St. Clair in Southeast Michigan for a week.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.